When you use wireless, you usually have an "access code" that you secure the wireless connection with on the router. The router also has to allow wireless connections and may have a specific password (or pass phrase) for encrypting the wireless connection. You chose this "code" when you set your router up, and the windows XP network connection asks you for it when you first try to connect to a secured network. Some routers will have wireless networking disabled out of the box - need to check that it is turned on / enabled.
1) Log onto your router and ensure that wireless connection is enabled, and that it has some kind of security enabled (WEP, WPA etc). Don't ever use an unsecured wireless connection - someone else can use it too.
http://www.openxtra.co.uk/articles/wpa-vs-wep2) Some routers use a MAC address to control the computers that are allowed to connect to the internet. This is called a MAC address filter, and every PC has a unique MAC address.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address. Some routers can be set-up so that ONLY computers in the MAC address list can connect. This is something for you to check. Sadly router models differ and I cannot give specific advice on this - see the manufacturer website. You can normally connect to the router using a local administative web page or something like that.
3) Now, the network settings need to be checked (and I am assuming here that this network connection has NEVER worked for you on that particular laptop)
In Windows XP, go to the networking options on the control panel and view the list of wireless networks that are available. You can change the order for "preferred" networks that the laptop will try and connect to. Removing an item from the list (i.e. the orange network) will cause the networking prompt to ask you for credentials when you try and re-connect to it (normally when windows reports "there are wireless networks available/detected"). This removal of an existing wireless network and its re-detection and re-connection should allow you to check that the correct wireless "access code" is being used. In addition to the code, the encryption mechanism needs to be correct as well. For example, if your router is using WEP or WPA encryption then you need to specify that encryption mechanism
4) Some laptops have a little switch to enable / disable wireless networking. Check this switch is set correctly - I'm ashamed to say that I've been caught out by this.
5) Move the laptop close to the router to check signal etc. Simple check etc.
Hope this helps!
Total Members: 311
